


12 Hours with Richie Tozier

by Demigod2405



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canon Jewish Character, Gay Stanley Uris, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Trans Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 11:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21409561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demigod2405/pseuds/Demigod2405
Summary: A look at Richie Tozier and the life he leads. his relationships with others and the relationships he wants to have.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 1
Kudos: 60





	12 Hours with Richie Tozier

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what I was doing when I was writing this, but I kinds like how it turned out. Let me know what you think!

It was the dead of night when Richie fell through his bedroom window onto the floor.

Thankfully he knew that the house was empty. His parents were in Indiana visiting his mothers’ sister and had taken Lucy with them. That cause enough to pull her out of kindergarten but not him out of high school. At fifteen years old though, Richie had accepted that his parents loved her more than they tolerated him. He had stolen his moms’ diary from the box in the attic and knew from it that she had wanted a daughter from the start.

Richie wasn’t an idiot – no matter what Stan said – he knew that his mom announcing her pregnancy only a month or two after he came out wasn’t a coincidence. After all, a drunk night had her loudly grieving her first daughter that he had ‘killed’. He didn’t care – he refused to be someone he wasn’t. When his parents called him Holly he ignored them; when they talked about their daughters work in school – he cocked his head and said ‘but Lucy isn’t in school yet’ when they bought him dresses and skirts he would loudly exclaim ‘I would look fabulous in it but I’m not that kind of gay’. The awkward, pinched lips, looks his parents wore were enough to keep the fire in his belly stoked.

The Loser Club had accepted him. Well, the original Losers Club had. Stan, Eddie and Bill had all learned about Richie and his dysphoria when his period had come while at the clubhouse with them. Bill had held him and let him cry on his shoulder as the blood had soaked through his shorts. Eddie had biked to the closest pharmacy with Stan to steal some supplies for him. The fact that small, shy Eddie had willingly stolen for him had cemented their already strong friendship into something unbreakable. Stan had also stolen a hot water bottle and a kettle – somehow – and had used the small battery/generator thing they had to fill the bottle with scalding water for him. Watching these three boys sacrifice an afternoon of fun to help a  _ girl  _ like him was the first time Richie had truly felt loved by the boys. Not the last time but the first.

He was counting the days till Mike, Bev and Ben found out. Richie kinda enjoyed having another girl in the group, made him see how different he was than her and that caused a comforting feeling to spread. He wasn’t like her, he wasn’t like the girls. He wasn’t a girl. Another thing he selfishly enjoyed was Bens’ extra weight. When they went to the quarry, Richie was hesitant to take his shirt off, even if his skinny frame meant his breasts were smaller than other ‘girls’ his age, he still had that moment of anxiety that they were going to look at his chest and finally realise that he was weird and wrong. But then Ben took off his shirt and his ‘pecs’ were larger than any of the other boys, Richie wouldn’t look heavy chested at all next to him. It was a mean thought but a true one. He loved Ben and Bev and Mike, but he still had that fear of rejection buried in his mind.

Bev was the first to find out when, after about a week or two after the whole ‘incident’, he complained to Eddie about not sharing his pain meds because ‘my stomach is cramping up Eds – you know how I get when that happens!’ in hindsight he probably should have used the word cramps but it was the truth so. The next day Bev had snuck through his bedroom window to ask him to round the Losers up, only to find him curled up with a hot water bottle and some Advil. She had sung him to sleep with fingers in his hair and then proceeded to clean his room – aka organized snooping – and found the very first training bra he was given. He had hidden it in his underwear drawer under the assumption that his friends would never go in there. Turns out he was wrong. Bev had sat him down when he woke up and had held him when he started to cry through his explanation. It felt nice to be held by her, he couldn’t recall the last time his mom had hugged him without it feeling suffocating. Like she was trying to squeeze the boy out of his brain and get her daughter back. Fat chance of that.

Mike was next. The rat dog had finally had a litter of puppies after trying for years. The Hanlon family had three ‘Farm’ dogs. A livestock guarding dog, a herding dog and a rat dog. The livestock guarding dogs was an Anatolian shepherd dog named Koma. His name was pronounced comma and it drove Stan up the wall given it was either ‘Misspelled or being said wrong!’ The herding dog was a stereotypical Border collie named Winnie. She was incredibly quick and agile, on her days off the Losers enjoyed taking her through obstacle courses and getting her even faster. But it was the Rat dog Richie was here to see. A beautiful white west highland Terrier named Lola. She was stationed in the barns and the house to keep mice and rats away. Except for right now. She was curled up in her bed, surrounded by about 8 or 9 puppies. All white and fluffy like her. Given that they only needed 1 or 2 dogs to take Lolas’ place, Mikes’ father had promised a puppy to any of the losers who wanted one. Like Richie. He was getting that pup and naming it Minnie after his cousin Mike. Mike had lashed out when Richie called him Mickey so Richie had swung around and called him Minnie. The fight that came was legendary but ultimately the name stuck.

But anyway back to the puppies and Mike. While Richie watched them all wiggle around trying to get something he didn’t know of, he spotted one in the back. A tiny thing, kind of pathetic looking, trying to reach their mother but being blocked by the other healthier pups. Pointing her out, he turned hopeful eyes on Mike. Mike just smiled and held the pup up exposing her belly and yes she was a she! Minnie was to make her way home with Richie in about 8 to 10 weeks. Two months then Minnie was his. Of course, when he picked her up was when he was on his period. And dogs smelled blood. Yeah, you know where this is going. Turns out the herding dog was trained to alert her owners to blood when the sheep where hurt. Richie walks up to the house to get his girl, Winnie smells blood and alerts her owners the closest being Mike, Mike asks where Winne sticks her snout into his crotch with no hesitation, Mike questions why he’s bleeding, Richie has to come clean-or be dragged to the hospital. Mike is understanding if a little dense about the issue.

Ben turned out to be the easiest and the most anticlimactic. Richie had pulled Ben to the side during hangouts and told him outright. The others all knew so he deserved to know too. Ben had looked Richie in the eye and said ‘Ok. I have Pads and Painkillers in my bag at all times for Bev but let me know if you need one. I disguised them so they’re not so obvious but I’ll still be discrete if you want.’ Richie had broken down on Bens' shoulder then was taken back to the group and treated no different. It was Heaven.

The largest difference made to their group after he came out was Bev stealing his skirts and dresses, leaving his closest emptier and better. But it turned out that Bev wasn’t the only one that liked the skirts Richies’ mother bought him. Stan did too. Richies' brain had short-circuited at that. Stan asking Bev where she got a skirt and Bev pointing to Richie. Stan climbing through his window and going through his closest while Richie watched. Richie running his hand up Stans’ thighs feeling the cotton of the pleated skirts catch on his knuckles. Stan hiding his face in Richies’ neck when he sat on his lap and wrapped his arms around Richies’ shoulders. It was new and a little terrifying. Watching Stan come undone by his hand, the skirt fluttering over Richies' lap and bunching by his stomach as Stan rocked in his lap. The Losers started keeping sensible pleated skirts at the clubhouse for Stan and Richies’ core would tighten when Stan wore one around. The pleats rested on his ass and fluttered up when he spun too fast. It was torture and apparently, Bill thought so too – not Stan though. No, Big Bill had his eyes firmly on Eddies’ ass in booty shorts. The booty shorts were significantly tighter than his normal shorts and rode up when he bent down. Richie made a habit of dropping things for Eddie to pick up – conveniently right in front of Bill.

It was nice his life. He still had nightmares about the ‘Incident’ He still looked over his shoulder too often for a normal boy but whatever. He was alive – his friends were alive so who cared.

His parents apparently.

He had only just changed out of his streetwear and into sweatpants, a sports bra that was comfy but still flattened his chest and a baggy tee to hide what wasn’t flattened when Lucys’ crying reached his ears. Shit. Richie hid his backpack with all the Losers related stuff in and put his stuffed animals on the highest shelf to stop Lucy ripping them up. He put his glasses in their case and inside a locked drawer before his door burst open and Lucy started jumping on his bed. He had tried to grab her and pull her down in the past but that just resulted in him being scolded for ‘putting her hands on her baby sister!’ So now he just watched and prayed she didn’t break anything. He made out his dead name spilling from her lips but ignored her, even when she stopped jumping and just sat crying. He knew this trick. If he answered to ‘Holly’ for Lucy his parents would twist it against him and spew shit like ‘see! You answered to Holly, you know in your heart that it’s your name’ to be fair Lucy could call him Slurs if she wanted to he would still answer her if only to get her to shut up.

‘HoLlY AnSwEr Me!’ call me by my name first you brat. ‘Holly don’t be mean to your sister!’ You stay out of this. He wanted to say, he couldn’t, but he wanted to. Instead, he swallowed the sick sludgy bile rising in his throat and sat on his bed, pulling Lucy onto his lap and let her wipe her snot on his shirt. ‘THeY wOuLdN’t LeT mE hAvE dIn DInS!!’ Richie took a deep breath through the nose, inhaling the sweet floral scent of Lucys’ kiddie shampoo and conditioner. This was a common argument between them. Mr and Mrs Tozier promised rewards for good behaviour then said you hadn’t done enough and refused said reward. It was so often used that Richie had stopped caring about it anymore. Especially when his parents used ‘Be on your best behaviour’ to mean ‘Let us dead name you and misgender you to everybody at the place then act like you murdered someone when you correct us’. Yeah no. Richie stopped caring about ‘acting nice’ a long time ago. Lucy though hadn’t. She still believed in the bullcrap their parents spewed out. His parents strung her along then left Richie to catch her when they let her go. It was cruel and it grated on Richies every nerve but there was nothing he could do about it.

It took about an hour to calm Lucy down and put her to bed. A change of the shirt later, Richie had packed his school stuff and was hightailing it back out the window. It was nearing dawn anyway so he figured he would crash at with Bev and her Aunt until school. He could also see how Minnie was doing. Richie had refused to let Minnie inside the Tozier house given his parents sadistic nature and his sisters’ tendency to throw things. It wasn’t until he reached her bedroom window that he saw Ben. Sitting cross-legged on the floor staring up at a laughing Bev. Like hell was Richie going to disturb them. He snuck away from her window as silently as possible while contemplating his other options. Mike was too far away and he was homeschooled so the morning would be weird. Eddie was living with Bill while his mother was being investigated and Richie didn’t want to sit in-between that hormone war. That left Stan. Sweet and sarcastic Stanley. His knight in a shining skirt. Hopefully.

It was refreshing to scale the Uris house walls, they often ended up at Bills' nowadays. Still, with how long they had known each other, Richie knew what part of the window ledge to land on to remain silent. How slowly to wiggle the window lock to stop it squeaking and the amount he needed to jump to clear Stans’ desk and land on the sofa in his room. He knew how to place his shoes so that they pointed towards the door, not the bed. How to straighten the sofa out so it was pristine. It was little thing that wouldn’t have mattered to him but he knew how Stans’ OCD got and he refused to cause his friend mental stress when he could avoid it. Stan slept on his stomach with both hands under his pillow and legs straight. It was easy for Richie to place his glasses on the bedside before crawling under the covers and flopping over Stans’ back. Legs tangled together and Richies' head resting on sharp shoulder blades – close enough that all he could hear was Stans’ heartbeat. It lulled him to sleep, quickly by calmly.

Only for Stans’ fuckin alarm to wake him up an hour or two later. Still better rest than if he tried to sleep at home. Lucy has no sense of boundaries. Little shit. Stan flopping his arm onto his alarm brought him back to reality. Stan slumped back down under the weight on his back and groaned out a couple of nonsensical mutterings. Nonsensical at least unless you grew up together. ‘If I make your breakfast while you’re in the shower, we can shave at least 20 minutes off the total time’ A skinny hand came up to pet at his head and Richie smiled wide before burrowing further into crisp cotton pyjamas. His pillow did eventually move away from him and ignored his groans of the contrary, Stan went for his shower first while Richie tried to remember where he put his glasses. Once they were found and his clothes assembled – he had learned early to bring a change of clothes. If he wore the same clothes twice in a row it would set Stans’ OCD off and, again, Richie refused to do that. He hopped in the shower after turning the lights out and washed as quickly as possible, refusing to look at his misshapen body. He saw a full-length binder on Stans’ bed next to his now folded clothes. He smiled at the knowledge of Stan buying a binder especially for when Richie stayed over.

Stan was already making breakfast when he slid down the bannister and fell into the kitchen. He knew just by feeling that Stan had rolled his eyes so he, without removing his face from the floor, held up a middle finger. He had painted his nails a dark purple the day before – it was the reason he had escaped his house, once his father saw his nails he had gone off – and next to his pale skin they were very striking. Eggy bread was delicately put on the table and Riche went to his place next to Stan and bowed his head while Stan prayed. While the Toziers were a Jewish family, they weren’t that involved with it. Stan being the Rabbis’ son, on the other hand, was very involved. So while Richie didn’t do things like actively praying before meals, he was more than happy to accommodate Stan. He waited until Stan picked up his utensils and started to eat. Something a lot of people around him were surprised at his table manners, Richie was quite calm and precise when he ate. Again though, this came from Richie growing up with Stan. Stans’ OCD took control in a lot of his life, this was another part. Richie had learned that sloppy eating set Stan off, more so because he couldn’t fix it. Richie knew how to arrange his plate, how to eat and how many times to chew certain things and when to stop and sip the drink. He knew what hand to hold what utensil in and he knew how to arrange the utensils and the glass with his plate. He was also the one to teach Bill and Eddie the code of conduct to help Stan. Because god forbid Stan to ask someone to change for him.

Thinking about their relationship growing up, Richie had always figured that since he made Stan question his faith, Stan had every right to ask him to change his habits. Yeah, you heard that right folk, he had managed to make Stanley Uris question his Jewish faith. Not intentionally but whatever. It had been when Stan had found out that Richie was transgender. Stan had had a choice of ‘following his faith’ or respecting his best friends’ bodily autonomy. Stan had asked for 48 hours to research his faith and the issue around it. Those had been the hardest 2 days of Richies’ life, not having his best friend to lean on and be leaned of from. It hadn’t help that his parents had made fun of it by asking if he and Stan were having ‘troubles in paradise’. It had been something arranged against his and Stans knowledge, the good little Rabbis’ son and the good little Jewish girl – a match made in Shamayim. Or it would have been if Stan hadn’t been Gay as Sheol and Richie hadn’t been a Transgender Bisexual mess. Still, Stan had come back to him after the allotted 48 hours and instead of speaking, had just wrapped him up in one massive hug. They had been closer than anyone else since then. When Richie had come out as Bi, Stan had given him the same kind of hug and when Stan had come out as gay, Richie had given him one right back. It was the kind of hug that said ‘You are ok. I am here. I accept you. I love you’ It was rarely used anymore, both of them have had their gender and sexuality crisis and both being firm in the knowledge of their love for each other. That was something that was never going to change.

10 Minutes later they were both out the door, Stan calmly riding his bike in a straight line down the street while Richie talked his head off - doing circles around him. Richie knew he was going to fall and scrape his knee, he always hit the same pothole every morning. The difference this morning was that his second favourite nurse was with him. His favourite being his Eds. That little spitfire would ream off a load of medical facts that would go straight over his head but would make him smile at the sound of the boys’ voice. Stan was his second favourite though. They worked with each other. He hit the pothole and went over his handlebars. He heard the tires of Stans bike skid on the road and come to a stop. Richie turned onto his back and sat up, hands held in front of him, palms up. An alcohol wipe was wiped over his palms and knees, a cotton pad dragged across to remove any caught dirt. Afterwards, Stan placed a kiss on each palm and each knee and Richie offered Stan one of the wipes for his lips followed by the tube of ChapStick he kept on him. With that, they were back on the road and towards school.

Eddie zeroed in on Richies scrapes the moment they secured their bikes. He (predictably) started a spiel of all the infections Richie could get from the school ground alone and Richie made inappropriate comments about the names of the infections. The same thing as always, and as always; Stan rolled his eyes, took Bills' hand and walked into the school, Ben and Bev following behind. Eddie and Richie would be stragglers, getting caught up in arguments (Read as Flirting) and generally being a nuisance to those around them. Richie loved it. He loved his found family and he admired the shit out of them for what they could put up with. He loved them point-blank. (Maybe he loved Stan a little bit more – but no one was around to hear that)


End file.
